I love learning about organizational leadership and management strategies, especially when they focus on goal setting. So when I listened to a podcast interview between Tim Ferriss and John Doerr, I just had to share it with you. It really helps you break down what to do next after you visualize your BHAG (big, audacious goal). John Doerr is a leadership and management legend in Silicon Valley. He is best known for his purpose-driven approach to helping companies like Google, Intel, and LinkedIn grow at huge rates. His results are nothing short of amazing and can help even the smallest business owners achieve their BHAG goals.
If you’re a follower of this blog, you know I strongly believe in the importance of dreaming big and establishing a BHAG. Having a BHAG, or a vision for what you want to achieve personally and in your business, can set the stage and kick-start an inspired marketing strategy that is easy to plan and implement.
What Are OKRs? Breaking Down Big Goals into Smaller Goals
John Doerr takes the BHAG to the next level by linking the BHAG to smaller goals that are easier to measure and achieve in a shorter amount of time. His framework is based on creating OKRs (short for Objectives and Key Results) for yourself and for your business. Basically, OKRs are Big Hairy Audacious Goals that have smaller, measurable goals tied to them. OKRs can unite a team and help everyone work together, accomplishing small goals that align and collectively move everyone closer to achieving the big goal together.
For the system to work the objective must tick two boxes. First, it must be personally significant and aspirational—something that gets the goal setter out of bed in the morning. And second, it must be significant for the company—everyone can get behind it. Your objective (your BHAG) should be the “what” in your goal setting. Once you’ve defined the objective then you can set your Key Results, which are the how.
Answering the How
Key Results answer the how questions that will result in achieving your objective. Key results must: first, make the objective possible, second, be measurable, third, be limited in number, and fourth, be time-related. If you know about SMART goals then this is probably familiar to you.
It’s important to establish a company-wide objective and the supporting key results first—before you dig into marketing-specific objectives. It is essential (and obvious) that your marketing objectives support your company goals. With our clients, we ensure that we understand their company goals and objectives before we consider the elements that will go into a marketing strategy.
Small business owners are often the President, Marketing Director, Head of Sales, CFO, and VP of Human resources of their company. So when it comes to setting OKRs it can be challenging to focus on just one area. This is why your company goals must always come first—then everything else can fall under it.
Once you know your company OKRs you can help your team members create theirs. Their objective must align with the company OKR but are personal to their role in your business. The key results they establish directly correlate with achieving their personal objective, which ultimately brings your business closer to achieving the overarching company objectives. The result will be a pyramid of aligned objectives that is personal to each individual on your team.
It’s amazing what can happen when you establish a big goal for your business and it’s miraculous when you set smaller goals that pave the way for achieving the big goals.
If this resonates with you, check out Measure What Matters and dig a little deeper into this method of achieving your biggest goals.
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Key Takeaway:
Once you have a BHAG, you need to set smaller goals, and OKRs are a great way to do this. Your “Objective” should be something that gets you out of the bed in the morning, and the “Key Results” you use to get there should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely (SMART).
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Other Posts on the Blog About Setting Goals:
About Fesyk Marketing
We are a small but mighty team of relationship builders and content creators.
We provide relationship marketing guidance and support to a variety of different businesses in Canada and the US. Our main focus is to help small businesses build better relationships with leads and existing clients so that they can grow through referrals and reputation. Content creation is at the heart of what we do. We have the capacity to bring to life our clients’ most creative ideas.